Therapy

Today I was a volunteer at Hope Remains. Hope Remains is a Ranch that helps 'problem kids' through therapy and activities with horses. Some kids may have been abused, may have anger problems and some kids may just have gotten in trouble at school. They spend about half the time with the kids with the horses, playing games and such, and then the second half of the time the kids learn scriptures and answer questions about how that can apply to their life.

Today I saw how much joy the horses brought to some of the kids. The kids were separated into two groups- and there were two horses. We were in an enclosed round ring at one end and at the other end stood a man holding a bucket full of golf balls. Each group had to help their riders into the saddle (each person in the group had to ride) and someone would lead the horse to the other end of the round pen to pick up a golf ball and then the horse would be lead back to the starting point after the golf ball had been dropped into a bucket balanced on a barrel. As a volunteer I managed one of the buckets on the barrel to make sure the smaller kids could get it in and to make sure the bucket didn't fall off the barrel.

I cannot follow the kids home to see how they apply the things they learn with the horses, but some of the workers did mention that they learn valuable lessons while working with the horses. For instance they once had an exercise where they had to make the horses move from one station to another, without touching the horses or using treats. If the horse would not move some children would get angry and yell, and of course the horse would then turn around and not come to that child. These things can be applied once they go home, for instance if a child yells at his mother because he isn't getting his way, the mother isn't going to give him what he wants, she will probably punish him or ignore him. (I was told this story at Hope Remains.) I was also told that the children sometimes have trouble trusting the horse. A big scary 1200 pound animal is hard to control and you need to trust it in order to climb on its back safely. Once the children can become confident around the horses and begin to trust them, then maybe they can learn to trust people in their life.

I believe today that the kids learned teamwork through use of a horse and team members as well as joy. I believe that sometimes when people or kids have a horrible home life they may forget that it is okay to find joy in things. If these kids get time every week to enjoy a horse and enjoy their time, maybe they will learn to enjoy the company of others and learn how to work together and leave their anger problems behind.

After the riding and time with the horses the kids had Bible Study time. They read and looked at a verse and applied it to their life. This part did not apply as much to my research but it was still insightful and I got to know some of the kids a bit more. I talked to a lady named Debra who was extremely friendly and knowledgeable about horses. She is not only a local musician but wants one day to become a cattle rancher. She talked about training horses and how she uses the Parelli Method, which I now will be googling all night to learn about.

If feel that this experience at Hope Remains will open my eyes to possibilities that and knowledge about horses that I would never have imagined.